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And because the Egyptians are of opinion that
Typhon was born of a red complexion, they are therefore
used to devote to him such of the neat kind as they find
to be of a red color; and their observation herein is so
very nice and strict that, if they perceive the beast to have
but one hair about it that is either black or white, they
account it unfit for sacrifice. For they hold that what is
fit to be made a sacrifice must not be of a thing agreeable
to the Gods, but contrariwise, such things as contain the
souls of ungodly and wicked men transformed into their
shapes. Wherefore in the more ancient times they were
[p. 92]
wont, after they had pronounced a solemn curse upon the
head of the sacrifice, and had cut it off, to fling it into the
river Nile; but now they distribute it among strangers.
Those also among the priests that were termed Sphragistae
or Sealers were wont to seal the beast that was to be offered; and the engraving of their seal was (as Castor tells
us) a man upon his knees with his hands tied behind him,
and a knife set under his throat. They believe, moreover,
that the ass suffers for being like him (as hath been already spoken of), as much for the stupidity and sensualness
of his disposition as for the redness of his color. Wherefore, because of all the Persian monarchs they had the
greatest aversion for Ochus, as looking upon him as a
villanous and abominable person, they gave him the nickname of the ass; upon which he replied: But this ass
shall dine upon your ox. And so he slaughtered the Apis,
as Dinon relates to us in his history. As for those that
tell us that Typhon was seven days flying from the battle
upon the back of an ass, and having narrowly escaped
with his life, afterwards begat two sons called Hierosolymus and Judaeus, they are manifestly attempting, as is
shown by the very matter, to wrest into this fable the
relations of the Jews.

Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 4.

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